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Two Choral Songs, Op 71

Introduction

The two Opus 71 songs, to words by Henry Vaughan, are exquisitely written, deceptive in their (relative) simplicity. In The Shower, the altos and tenors have semiquavers against the tune’s quavers in a couple of places, suggesting the ‘train of drops’ of the title. The second song, The Fountain, refers to a stillness in nature (‘all the earth lay hush’); but then, ‘Only a little fountain lent Some use for ears’. The music of nature was always a potent force for Elgar: as a boy he had been found lying by the River Severn, ‘trying to fix the sounds’ as he wrote many years later.

Cloud, if as thou dost melt, and with thy train
Of drops make soft the earth, my eyes could weep
O’er my hard heart, that’s bound up and asleep;
Perhaps at last,
Some such showers past,
My God would give a sunshine after rain.

Cloud, if as thou dost melt, and with thy train
Of drops make soft the Earth, my eyes could weep
O’er my hard heart, that’s bound up and asleep;
Perhaps at last, Some such showers past,
My God would give a sunshine after rain.

The unthrift sun shot vital gold,
A thousand, thousand pieces;
And heav’n its azure did unfold
Chequer’d with snowy fleeces;
The air was all in spice,
And ev’ry bush
A garland wore:
Thus fed my eyes,
But all the earth lay hush.
Only a little fountain lent
Some use for ears,
And on the dumb shades language spent,
The music of her tears.

The unthrift sun shot vital gold,
A thousand, thousand pieces;
And heav’n its azure did unfold
Chequer’d with snowy fleeces;
The air was all in spice,
And ev’ry bush A garland wore:
Thus fed my eyes,
But all the earth lay hush.
Only a little fountain lent
Some use for ears,
And on the dumb shades language spent
The music of her tears.